I wasn't really planning on watching the eclipse. It was supposed to happen right after I returned from lunch. But then the boss of the call center came around handing out eclipse glasses. I still wasn't sold on it. I'd seen these things before. Where I am it wouldn't even be a total eclipse. There would still be a sliver of sun on one edge when the moon moved by.
But I looked out the window and saw how dark it had become. I'd just gotten back from lunch, and they were letting us go outside for a few minutes. I figured, anything to get away from the phones for a bit. We were super busy today.
I went outside, donned the glasses, and looked up. My field of vision was pitch black except for that golden sliver. It seems I'd come out at just the right time. I saw the sun as covered as it was going to get. I heard someone say that it wasn't going to happen again for another 20 years, and I realized that I might not be alive for the next one. Life is always precarious for me, it seems, and the likelihood of me making it to 65 is pretty low.
So I watched the eclipse for a few minutes, and it felt a little more important than it had earlier in the day. I wondered what it must have been like for people living in a pre-science era during an eclipse. Maybe they knew it happened from time to time. It's a weird world. Darkness at noon isn't too out of the ordinary. But what about the first humans to ever see an eclipse? That must have scared the ever-lovin' shit out of them.
But in this modern era we know exactly when an eclipse will happen. No soothsayers need apply. The universe is like clockwork. A place for everything and everything in its place.
Even me. As I looked up at the sliver I had an odd feeling that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I'm not one for destiny, but it felt like I was a part of a much bigger scheme of things. And I was. How long have humans gazed up in wonder at eclipses? Millennia? I leaned back against the outside wall of the building and tried to see the moon moving. Given enough time I'm sure I could have, but I had to get back to work.
I took the glasses off and went back inside. To the busy phones. To the workday that is, essentially, the same cycle day in and day out, as predictable as a, well, you know.
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